海洋垃圾是指海洋和海岸环境中具持久性的、人造的或经加工的固体废弃物。海洋垃圾影响海洋景观，威胁航行安全，并对海洋生态系统的健康产生影响，进而对海洋经济产生负面效应。这些海洋垃圾一部分停留在海滩上，一部分可漂浮在海面或沉入海底。正确认识海洋垃圾的来源，从源头上减少海洋垃圾的数量，有助于降低海洋垃圾对海洋生态环境产生的影响。

Chinese scientists have developed a plastic that degrades in seawater and could help curb the increasingly serious plastic pollution in the oceans.

中国科学家已经开发出一种在海水中可以降解的塑料，可以帮助抑制海洋中日益严重的塑料污染。

The new polyester composite material can decompose in seawater over a period ranging from a few days to several hundred days, leaving small molecules that cause no pollution, said Wang Gexia, a senior engineer at the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

中科院化物所的高级工程师王格霞说道，这类新的合成聚酯材料经过几天到几百天的时间以后可以在海水中分解，分解后的小分子对海水没有污染。

For a long time, people focused on ’white pollution’ on land. Plastic pollution in the seas only caught people’s attention when more and more reports about marine animals dying from it appeared in recent years, said Wang.

王还表示，很长一段时间人们关注的是在陆地上的白色污染，但是对于海洋的塑料污染问题仅在最近几年才引起人们的关注，因为越来越多的关于海洋生物死亡的报告出现。

Scientists combined non-enzymic hydrolysis, water dissolution and biodegradation processes to design and invent the new material.

科学家将非酶水解、水溶解和生物降解的过程联系起来，设计并发明了这种新型材料。

The research was recently selected as one of 30 winning projects at a contest of innovative future technologies in Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong Province. The contest encouraged young Chinese scientists to conceive groundbreaking technologies and trigger innovation.

最近在中国南部的广东省深圳市举行的创新未来技术大赛中，这项研究是30个获奖项目之一。这次大赛的目的在于鼓励年轻的中国科学家构思开创性的技术并激发创新活力。

China has given top priority to ecological environmental protection, contributing Chinese wisdom to resolving global pollution.

中国已经高度重视生态环境保护，为解决全球污染问题贡献了中国的智慧。